On the first day of February, I am of course posting a poem titled February. However, it wasn’t actually the title of this poem that first drew me in. It was the author, Michael Field. He is not one poet, but two. And neither of them were male. Michael Field was the pseudonym of Katherine Harris Bradley and her niece Edith Emma Cooper. Together, they published eight books of poetry and 27 plays in late 19th-century Britain. So, even though the word use and imagery in this poem are great, I hope you will mostly remember these 2 extraordinary women.
Gay lucidity,
Not yet sunshine, in the air;
Tingling secrets hidden everywhere,
Each at watch for each;
Sap within the hillside beech,
Not a leaf to see.
Michael Field
Alix in Wonderland 